Capital Parkland - Part 06 - Spruce Grove Continued: Meet the neighbours!

 

Species of Spruce Grove

Bogey

Bogeys fit into Spruce Grove like raccoons at a midnight tailgate — loud, clever, shameless, and somehow always knowing the shortcut through a maze of purgatorial cul-de-sacs. In the Elven Trailer Court, Bogeys are the barter-kings, salvage-scouts, and neon-lit dealmakers who thrive in the chaotic blend of faerie glamour and Alberta pragmatism. Many claim ancestry from fey courts or forgotten dimensions, but most Bogeys insist they “showed up, liked the rent, and stayed.” Their family compounds occupy the densest pockets of the trailer-spiral, where stacked RVs and storage sheds become multilevel warrens alive with whispered schemes and friendly con-jobs. Bogeys trade in everything the elves won’t touch — broken bug zappers, cursed hubcaps, off-brand arcane texts, and suspicious barrels of “mystery diesel.”

Despite their reputation for trickery, they’re fiercely loyal once an adventuring party becomes “family,” banding together with frightening efficiency against threats like Bubba Yaga, the Ringborn, or an overdue property spirit. They get along best with humans (easy marks) and gnomes (dangerously compatible), and view Spruceling elves as delightful neighbours who haven’t yet learned how to haggle properly. Small, fast, cunning, and blessed with a strange honour among thieves, Bogeys are the Grove’s unofficial diplomats, smugglers, fixers, and chaos-gremlins — indispensable in a place where glamour bends reality and everything, even a parking pass, has hidden value.

Elves

In Spruce Grove, the Elves are refugees twice over — first from their ancestral forests, twisted or consumed during the Hodgepocalypse, and second from themselves. Forced to abandon ancient customs, they rebuilt their society amid abandoned cul-de-sacs, half-flooded parks, and a sprawl of rusted RV lots. What emerged was something new: a people who fused timeless fae mysticism with the improvisational grit of central Albertan suburbia. Whether Verdant, Exalted, or Resplendent in origin, all three subspecies adapted in wildly different ways to survive the Grove—then blended until the distinctions blurred like Northern Lights reflected in motor-oil puddles.

Relationships define Spruce Grove Elves far more than lineage now. They treat the trailer park like a living organism: every cul-de-sac a clan circle, every stacked trailer a branch of the family tree, every propane fire pit a sacred hearth. They barter secrets with Bogeys, debate philosophy with Trollitariots, and treat Humans as honorary cousins who need constant guidance (and occasional babysitting). Their glamour is fueled not by moonlit glades but by neon bug zappers, banjo chords, and the hum of old power lines. In Spruce Grove, an Elf is still an Elf — graceful, long-lived, and eerily perceptive — but they’ve traded the sylvan aloofness of their ancestors for community, chaos, and the strange, stubborn magic of a town that refused to die.

The Ghost Magpies  

The Eternal Busybodies of Spruce Grove, Ghost Magpies drift through Spruce Grove like half-remembered pranks given feathery form, flickering between bird and cloaked stranger depending on their mood or how much mischief they smell. Locals insist they’re either ancient elven omen-spirits, dreamstuff blown in from the highways’ psychic winds, or the recycled souls of magpies who stole so much junk they eventually ascended. In the trailer labyrinth, they perch on satellite dishes, steal glitter cans, and reorganize your RV keys to watch you curse. Though compulsive tricksters, they secretly protect the Grove from bullies — especially abusive war-rig crews and predatory fae — coordinating in murder-swarms to humiliate wrongdoers with pranks so karmic they become legends. Their hidden “trash hoards” out in the ditches are infamous treasure piles, containing everything from magical hubcaps to lost IDs and artifacts stolen from people who absolutely deserved to lose them.

Trollitariot

In Spruce Grove, the Trollitariot are the backbone of everything that doesn’t collapse — and half the things that do, because they enjoy rebuilding them. Drawn from the Dreamtime by the irresistible promise of “real work that actually matters,” they’ve settled into the trailer spirals as self-appointed fixers, mutterers, and midnight road-patchers. While the elves weave glamour into satellite dishes and neon signs, the Trollitariot handle the physical labour: stacking RVs three high, reinforcing chicken-legged huts, and building “temporary” bridges that somehow become spiritual landmarks. They grumble constantly about elven nonsense — “sparkly weirdos with poor load-bearing instincts” — yet take deep pride in being needed.

Despite their grouchy tone, Spruce Grove’s Trollitariot form genuine bonds with the locals. Once a Spruceling earns their respect (usually by working a full shift without whining), they’ll have a friend for life — one who’ll quietly repair their Airstream in the dead of night or stare down an angry banshee with equal parts stubbornness and profanity. Their Dreamtime heritage gives them long ears and wiry frames, making them look like giant Bogeys stretched through a funhouse mirror. Still, their attitudes are pure Alberta: hard work, blunt talk, and a suspicious fascination with power tools. In a town full of magical chaos and glitter-soaked rituals, the Trollitariot keep things grounded — even if they complain the whole time.

 Geography & Districts of Spruce Grove

“A city of cul-de-sacs, chicken-legged RVs, and glamour that smells faintly of propane.”

Spruce Grove didn’t simply survive the Hodgepocalypse — it rearranged itself. The ley lines twisted the old suburban grid into spirals, pockets, and loops where glamour pools like melted snow. Trailers, RVs, lifted trucks, and mutated playgrounds became anchors for wandering magic. The place is equal parts prairie, faerie realm, and the world’s largest off-brand campground.

The glamour is strongest here, fed by thousands of rusted mailboxes acting as accidental foci. Elves treat the Loop as both a defensive perimeter and a spiritual pilgrimage way; completing a full circuit is considered a rite of adulthood, assuming you don’t vanish into a Mirror Cul-de-Sac first.

Landmarks of Spruce Grove

The heart of Spruce Grove — a spiralled mass of stacked trailers, chicken-legged RVs, wandering deck-platforms, and haunted port-a-sheds. The architecture continues to grow vertically, horizontally, and occasionally sideways into other realities.

Border Paving Combat Grounds — The Asphalt Arena

What was once Border Paving is now a sacred battleground where hot-blooded warriors, magical truck-tenders, and glamoured road spirits settle disputes through burnouts, wheelie rituals, and chrome-blessed trials. The asphalt is always warm, always humming, and sometimes shifts underfoot like a restless beast. The elves say the ground remembers the machines that thundered over it.
Plot Hook: A mysterious crack has opened in the asphalt, exhaling hot winds and whispered challenges. The Chrome Father demands a champion step forward before the ground gets hungry.

Central Park / Borderline Green — The Shimmerfield

What used to be a calm suburban park now pulses with bioluminescent grass, ley-shock mushrooms, and trickster spirits that take the form of magpies made of stolen sunglasses. The elves use the Shimmerfield for diplomatic gatherings, bardic competitions, and the occasional dance-fight with fae rivals from Stony Plain.
Plot Hook: A growing bald patch in the park is devouring magic at an alarming rate. If untreated, it will become a “Null Zone” — deadly to elves, wild magic, and glamoured tech alike.

The Cranklot — The Chrome Father’s Court

The Boxco parking lot transcended its humble origins: now it’s a ritual ground of lifted rigs, bumper-charmed battle trucks, and worshippers of the Chrome Father. The shrine — an old, lifted Ford decorated like a Norse altar — hums with mechanical divinity and occasionally revs on its own.
Plot Hook: The Chrome Father has gone silent, his headlights dimmed. Rumors whisper of a curse spreading from the automotive aisles — and a rival deity rising from St. Albert.

Eggspire Labs — The Poultry Prism Tower

Hidden on the outskirts, near the industrial zones, Eggspire Labs is a warped, egg-shaped research facility built from fungal crystals and retrofitted trailers. It’s where rogue scientists, poultry seers, and psychic chickens undertake “cluckstodian rituals” forbidden by both elven law and common sense.
Plot Hook: A feathered blackout has fallen over the district — no chicken crows at dawn. Eggspire is sealing its doors, and the psychic static is growing louder.

The Faerie Ring Playground — The Laughing Slide

Once a cheerful children’s park, now a supernatural node where the plastic play structure has become a semi-sentient oracle. Its slides whisper secrets, breakups, and uncomfortable truths about your future; its swings creak in impossible rhythms. Local parents warn children not to accept “gifts” from the monkey bars.
Plot Hook: The playground has begun abducting adult memories and storing them inside its tunnels. The PCs must retrieve stolen childhoods without becoming part of the play structure themselves.

The Grain Elevator Tower — The Verti-Barn

The last surviving grain elevator of old Spruce Grove didn’t fall — it grew. Layer by layer, elves stacked shipping containers, RV shells, and scavenged barn wood until the Verti-Barn reached the clouds, pulsing with ley energy that smells faintly of oats and diesel. At night, glowing runes drift down like fireflies.
Plot Hook: A rogue spirit has begun manipulating the Verti-Barn’s machinery, causing containers to rearrange themselves into ominous shapes. Someone (or something) is trying to send a message through architecture.

The Horizon Stage — The Neon Elk Opera Hall

The Horizon Stage became a haven for elven glam-opera after the world cracked. Now holographic elk, glowing antler-spirits, and neon-draped performers reenact sagas that alter fate and summon storms. The audience is required to wear glamoured earplugs — “for safety.”
Plot Hook: A performer has gone missing mid-aria, pulled into a parallel echo of Spruce Grove’s future. The show demands the PCs replace her… whether they can sing or not.

Jack’s Drive-In — The Throne of Grease & Prophecy

Jack’s Drive-In survived the end of the world simply by refusing to change; in the Hodgepocalypse, its stubbornness became holy. The Court of Jacks rules from its deep-fried temple, a shimmering house of neon grease-sigils and enchanted fry vats that occasionally whisper the future. It’s the only place where a burger can open a third eye — or close one forever.
Plot Hook: A prophecy burned into the fry grease foretells a disaster the Court refuses to acknowledge. The PCs must decode the sizzling message before the “Grease Eclipse” arrives.

Jubilee Park — The Green Hollow

Jubilee Park, once a family recreation area, is now a fae-infused forest pocket cradled by glamour and warped playground roots. The elves treat it as a sacred retreat where spirits of old shade trees debate the ethics of picnics and guide initiates through rites of camouflage, patience, and “hiding from your ex.” On full moons, the park’s amphitheatre opens into a natural portal to the Dreamtime.

Plot Hook: Children have gone missing during glamour swells, taken by a rogue tree-spirit who believes they are reincarnations of ancient fae nobles. The PCs must negotiate in the Hollow — where every lie becomes a vine.

The Library of Lost Parking Passes — Cartographers of the Before-Times

Once a modest municipal library, now a maze of enchanted road atlases, glowing paper maps, and sentient parking passes that flap like moths. Elven librarians guard the knowledge of “old roadways,” claiming that pre-Hodgepocalypse traffic patterns are keys to future prophecy. Visitors must pass the Dewey Ritual (alphabetical combat) to gain entry.
Plot Hook: A vital map that shows a forgotten offramp into EdTown’s dreamscape has vanished. Rumours say it walked off on its own — and may be plotting something.

The Tri Leisure Trials — The Water-Warp Rec Centre

The Tri Leisure Centre has become a cathedral of recreational chaos: waterslides that bend into other planes, diving boards that rebound with impossible force, and an ice rink patrolled by Zamboni golems who groom the ice and the soul. The elves use the slides as test chambers for agility rites and teenage dares that sometimes end in different dimensions.
Plot Hook: A waterslide has begun spitting out strange artifacts and lost travellers covered in glitter and frost. The PCs must trace the slide's path before the portal widens.

Westland Market Mall (Dead Mall of Echoes)

Once a modest shopping center, Westland Market Mall is now a haunted retail labyrinth patrolled by the Echo Shoppers — glitches of past customers looping in spectral routines. The elves use the mall’s central court as a neutral meeting ground for diplomacy, trade talks, and ritual catwalk duels. Some say a forgotten anchor store still exists behind a sealed gate, containing relics of consumerism too powerful for mortal hands.

Plot Hook: The Echo Shoppers have begun manifesting physically and stealing authentic goods. To stop them, the PCs must enter the “Back Hall,” a maze of half-remembered stores where nostalgia hunts intruders like a predator.

Travel Notes of Spruce Grove

"The road lies. Trust your boots, not your GPS." — Old Spruceling proverb

The Dreampath Slip

When the highway blocks you and the GPS deceives you, the locals always say the same thing:
“Take the Dreampaths, but don’t think too hard or they’ll think back.”

Dreampaths are faint ley-lines worn into the land by nightly banjo magic and wandering spirits of the Grove. They let travellers bypass curses but walking them means your thoughts become scenery.

5e Mechanics:

Entering a Dreampath

·       PCs must succeed on a DC 13 Charisma saving throw to keep their identity aligned.

·       On a failure, one dream or memory manifests physically for the next hour (GM choice — an NPC, a creature, a fear, a childhood pet, etc.).

·       On a critical failure (nat 1), the group encounters a Glamour Duplicate: a friendly or hostile copy of one-party member.

Adventure Hook (Mini):

A band of Spruceling kids is lost on a Dreampath, and their dream-creatures have started wandering into the Grove.

Elven Glamour Mucks With GPS

The Sprucelings’ magic saturates the air like cheap incense — fragrant, persistent, and absolutely impossible to ignore. The result is a veil of illusions that scrambles digital navigation. Apps glitch, screens flicker, and even mundane compasses spin like they’re auditioning for a metal band. Travellers often find themselves arriving at the wrong Wanderstop, the wrong cul-de-sac, or occasionally the wrong version of Spruce Grove entirely. Some swear there’s a mirror town of eldritch green skies and power lines shaped like runes.

5e Mechanics:

Spruceling Glamour Field

·       Creatures relying on technological or magical navigation (including find the path, locate object, and locate creature) must roll a DC 15 Wisdom save or the spell/device leads them to the wrong place (often dangerous).

·       Creatures traveling traditionally (landmarks, sun, vibes) gain advantage on navigation checks within Spruce Grove.

·       Failing a navigation check by 5 or more leads PCs to a random faerie-touched location (playground mushroom ring, abandoned Wanderstop, Chrome Father’s Shrine, etc.).

Adventure Hook (Mini):

A Circle K from another dimension keeps overlapping with the real one — and something is watching from the slushie machine.

Highway 16 Is Cursed

Nobody knows whether the curse predates the Hodgepocalypse or if the highway finally snapped under decades of construction delays — but today the Yellowhead is a living, shifting creature of orange cones and conjured inconvenience. Lanes realign when you blink. Detours fold in on themselves like origami. Workers in reflective vests appear and vanish like ghosts, always waving you toward your doom. Clearing the barricades never helps; they regrow by dawn, reborn from lingering glamour and municipal spite.

5e Mechanics:

Highway 16 Construction Aura

·       Whenever a creature travels along Highway 16 for more than 10 minutes, they must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom (Survival) check or become magically redirected to a random location within 1d6 miles.

·       Clearing or dispelling the barriers requires a successful DC 18 Intelligence (Arcana) check, but the effect returns at sunrise regardless.

·       Casting dispel magic suppresses the construction for 10 minutes, but doing so summons a spectral flagger (use Will-o’-Wisp stats, but holding a sign).

Adventure Hook (Mini):

A construction crew of faerie hard hats has unionized and gone rogue, demanding magical concessions from the Chrome Father before allowing anyone through town.

The Wrong Wanderstop

Abandoned since the early days of the Hodgepocalypse, the Wanderstop near the Grove is famous for flickering in and out of reality like a faint radio station. Some nights it’s boarded up. Some nights it’s pristine. Some nights it’s… alive.

5e Mechanics:

Roll 1d6 when the party is lured here:
1 — Haunted by Ringborn children
2 — Portal to the Barbacoa Spire
3 — Glamour illusion masking a bandit camp
4 — Dream-Ale barrels left behind (dangerous)
5 — Wanderstop staff from another timeline are still working
6 — The store tries to eat the party politely

Local Threats:

Bubba Yaga — The Airstream Hag

Bubba Yaga roams the backroads of Spruce Grove in a rust-pitted Airstream mounted on a pair of spindly metal legs, clattering along like a drunken insect god. Her propane tanks hiss like angry spirits, and she is followed everywhere by the smell of burnt bacon that never comes from anything cooking. Once an honoured member of the Kaylna Country Baba Sisterhood, Bubba was exiled for “culinary crimes against magic,” which she insists were misunderstandings involving enchanted mustard and an unfortunate relative. Now she cruises the Grove picking fights, trading gossip that can hex entire neighbourhoods, and challenging strangers to spectral hot-dog eating contests where losing means your shadow smells like onions for a year.
Plot Use: Bubba has declared someone at the party “her new grandchild” and will not take no for an answer.

The Ringborn — Playground Revenants

The Ringborn are children taken by the mushroom circles of the Faerie Ring Playground and returned… modified. Their eyes glow with cold bioluminescence, their movements swing and sway like invisible seesaws, and they speak in voices that echo faintly with dozens of harmonics — as though someone else is always whispering under their words. They gather near playgrounds at dusk, gliding rather than running, perpetually playing games whose rules make no sense to mortal minds. Locals say the Ringborn are neither harmed nor benevolent; they are emissaries of the playground spirits, forever watching and occasionally luring adults into elaborate games where losing means you wake up days later with bark for skin.
Plot Use: One Ringborn keeps appearing near the PCs, silently inviting them to “come play one round.”

Sparkbucks — The Sign-Nest Faerie Deer

Sparkbucks are miniature faerie deer no larger than starlings, each one carved from glimmers of headlights and iced coffee dreams. They build intricate nests inside the glowing signage of the old Mercer’s Messkits drive-thrus, eating electrical hums and dripping light from their antlers like neon sap. Their presence is both blessing and menace: Sparkbucks bring luck to those who treat them with respect but will aggressively kick at anyone who disrupts their nesting grounds — causing the signs to flicker, warp text, or display eldritch donut recipes. On rare nights, herds of Sparkbucks leap from sign to sign, forming constellations shaped like pastries and guiding travellers off cursed highways.
Plot Use: A Sparkbuck herd has gone into rut and is defending a drive-thru with lethal adorableness.

The Taint of the West — Spiritual Mildew

The Taint of the West is a spreading metaphysical mold, a psychic mildew that seeps into Spruce Grove like a bad vibe with teeth. It starts as a feeling — that faint sense of being watched by something unimpressed with your life choices — then manifests physically as blotches of iridescent damp creeping across walls, signs, and flesh. Those infected don’t fall sick; they become compelled to share unsolicited opinions on behalf of entities lurking beyond the Hodgepocalypse veil. They gain influence, followers, and viral meme-magic powers, but lose all sense of agency as they become hosts for eldritch marketing campaigns. No one knows what the Taint wants, only that it spreads fastest through small talk and passive-aggressive comments.
Plot Use: Someone the PCs know is suddenly spouting eerily specific messages — clearly not their own.

Wight Coyotes — Dubstep Howlers of the Ditches

Wight Coyotes prowl the fields around Century Road, spectral and lanky, with glowing rib-lines and eyes like dying dashboard LEDs. Their howl is a distorted, bass-heavy dubstep wail that rattles windshields and curdles milk for miles. These undead scavengers drift through fences, circle campsites, and mimic the sounds of engines idling to lure travellers off the road. Though they rarely attack outright, they are drawn to emotional distress — feeding on fear, heartbreak, and road rage like psychic carrion. Farmers claim they can be appeased with a perfectly tuned FM radio, but no one agrees on the station.
Plot Use: A pack of Wight Coyotes is following the party, remixing their campfire songs into unsettling dubstep echoes.

Adventure Hooks:

The Triple Jack Challenge: The PCs are dared to uncover the secrets hidden in Jack's greasy triple-stack burger. Eat it and see visions. Or die trying.

The Mushroom Moon Fair: A carnival appears in the playground ring. Prizes include memory candies, soul rides, and an accordion that can make you dance forever.

Bubba Yaga's BBQ Off: She's hosting a cookoff and everyone in town is cursed to compete… or become ingredients.

#Hodgepocalypse #TTRPG #DnD5e #Worldbuilding #SpruceGrove #UrbanFae #PostApocComedy